Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs.

US lawmakers strike deal to boost aviation safety, will not raise pilot retirement age

U.S. House and Senate negotiators said early Monday they had reached a deal to boost air traffic controller staffing and boost funding to avert runway close-call incidents, but will not increase the airline pilot retirement age to 67 from 65. The U.S. House of Representatives in July voted 351-69 on a sweeping bill to reauthorize the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that would also raise the mandatory pilot retirement age to 67 but the Senate Commerce Committee had voted in February to reject the retirement age increase. International rules would have prevented airline pilots older than 65 from flying in most countries outside the United States.

For some Columbia students, protest encampment is living history lesson

Before students set up a pro-Palestinian protest encampment on a Columbia University lawn last week, some of them took an optional course called "Columbia 1968" about protests against the Vietnam War, a similarly galvanizing moment of campus activism. Frank Guridy, the Columbia history professor who has taught the class since 2017, along with a couple of his students stopped by the encampment at the New York City campus on Thursday to discuss the parallels at a teach-in called "1968: Continuing the Fight." Protesters listened sitting on mats on the grass outside their tents, eating free kidney beans and rice and kosher Passover snacks off paper plates from a nearby community kitchen set up on tables under canopies.

Blinken says he'll press Israel on more humanitarian aid to Gaza

The U.S. has seen measurable progress in the humanitarian situation in Gaza, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday, but he cautioned that it still wasn't sufficient and vowed to press Israeli officials later this week to do more. Blinken's remarks during a Middle East trip to check in on humanitarian aid to Gaza come about a month after Biden issued a stark warning to Netanyahu, saying Washington's policy could shift if Israel fails to take steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers.

Dozens of tornadoes strike Oklahoma, killing at least four

At least four people died, including a four-month-old baby, and scores were injured in Oklahoma this weekend after dozens of twisters swept the U.S. Southern Plains, while weather alerts on Sunday put more than 7 million Americans under tornado warnings. Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt on Sunday declared a disaster emergency for the state, freeing up more money for first responders and recovery operations.

Pro-Palestinian protesters at UCLA tussle with Israel supporters

Protests at U.S. universities showed no sign of slowing over the weekend, with more arrests on campuses across the country and skirmishes between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian demonstrators at UCLA, where a tent encampment was set up last week. As the size of the pro-Palestinian encampment at the University of California at Los Angeles expanded in recent days, counter-protesters have become increasingly vocal and visible on the campus, although both sides remained peaceful until Sunday.

Trump trial tests his campaign strategy of embracing bad publicity

Meetings with foreign dignitaries at Trump Tower. A staged visit to a convenience store in the New York City Democratic stronghold of Harlem. Daily remarks broadcast on national cable television from outside the courtroom, and a blizzard of angry posts on his Truth Social platform. In the midst of his New York hush money trial, Republican former president Donald Trump is testing the boundaries of the saying that there is no such thing as bad publicity. Even if you are running for the highest office in the land.

Explainer-Who are some of the people and groups involved in US college protests?

In the days since police arrested more than 100 pro-Palestinian demonstrators at Columbia University on April 18, a protest encampment has been re-established on the New York campus and hundreds of protesters have been arrested at schools from California to Massachusetts. The protests over the conflict between Israel and Palestinians - and the response from administrators, politicians, faculty and students to the demonstrations - have roiled college campuses and divided the American public. Here is a look at some of the key players.

Biden jabs Trump in election-year roast at correspondents' dinner

U.S. President Joe Biden delivered an election-year roast on Saturday night at the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner as protesters outside criticized his support for Israel's war against Hamas. Biden used the annual black-tie event to chide his Republican rival Donald Trump for immaturity, poke fun at his own advanced age and take on the Washington press corps.

VP Harris seeks to energize Black voters with economic opportunity tour

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Monday will launch a multistate tour to tout economic opportunities for Black Americans in an effort to mobilize a critical voting base for Democrats ahead of November's election. A major focus of the tour is energizing and engaging Black men, according to a White House official, a key demographic shown by polls to have lost some faith in the Democratic Party. Winning them back will likely determine whether President Joe Biden returns to the White House.

As solar capacity grows, some of America's most productive farmland is at risk

Dave Duttlinger's first thought when he saw a dense band of yellowish-brown dust smearing the sky above his Indiana farm was: I warned them this would happen. About 445 acres of his fields near Wheatfield, Indiana, are covered in solar panels and related machinery – land that in April 2019 Duttlinger leased to Dunns Bridge Solar LLC, for one of the largest solar developments in the Midwest.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)